Nepal quake: Rescue teams and hospitals struggle to cope

Cotton, splints, antibiotics, IV drips, dressings, blades, sterile gloves. These were just some of the items on a handwritten list of supplies - photographed and circulated widely on social media on Sunday - urgently required by Bir Hospital in Kathmandu as it tried to cope with an onslaught of patients injured in the devastating earthquake that struck the country over the weekend.

That one of Kathmandu's premier hospitals had already run short of such basic items highlighted Nepal's lack of preparedness to cope with a massive earthquake, which geologists have long warned was inevitable in the Himalayas, one of the world's youngest, and most tectonically unstable mountain ranges.

In its appeal for help to deal with the aftermath of Saturday's earthquake - that is known to have killed at least 2,800 people - the Nepali government has asked the international community to provide supplies ranging from body bags for the dead, bulldozers to clear the rubble and helicopters to reach remote and inaccessible areas.

Search-and-rescue and disaster relief personnel, especially from Nepal's two powerful neighbours, India and China, has already arrived in the country late on Saturday, while members of the Nepali army picked their way through rubble in the crowded streets of the historic capital to rescue victims trapped in the debris.

But most residents of Kathmandu, and those living in remote and inaccessible mountain villages across Nepal, were left largely on their own as they struggled to cope with the aftermath of the disaster. The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Sunday that food, water, shelter and medical care were urgently required.

Hospitals and healthcare professionals have been under particularly heavy strain, as they tried to care for the approximately 6,200 people so far known to have been injured in the quake.

"Patients are pouring in and we are trying to do the best that we can though we are sometimes not able to provide the care that we want," said Dr Praveen Nepal at Norvic International Hospital, a 125-bed private hospital in Kathmandu.

Dr Nepal said many of Kathmandu's smaller hospitals had been forced to close as they had suffered structural damage, while bigger hospitals were so overwhelmed with the inflow of patients they were treating people outside in tents.

"In Kathmandu Valley, hospitals are overcrowded, running out of room for storing dead bodies, and also running out of emergency medical supplies," the Office of the United Nations Resident Coordinator wrote in a situation report. "Bir hospital is treating people in the streets."

Strain was also evident at Kathmandu's Tribhuvan International Airport, where thousands of people, mainly foreign tourists, struggled to escape the stricken country, which was at the height of its mountaineering centred tourist season when the disaster struck.

The airport was closed to commercial flights after the quake on Saturday. It reopened on Sunday morning, only to shut down again a few hours later, after an aftershock with a magnitude measuring 6.7 sent air traffic control crews fleeing the tower.

"We circled over Kathmandu airspace for quite some time, but ATC officials had fled the building so IndiGo pilot unable to land," Indian television anchorman Rahul Kanwal tweeted on Sunday afternoon.

"Many passengers on board were going to check on family members. Deeply anguished about not being able to land," he added. "Many broke down en route."

Meanwhile, the Indian Air Force has evacuated hundreds of its own citizens on military flights, using its C-130 transport planes.

Many of Kathmandu's estimated 700,000 people, including its foreign residents, had remained outside since the quake, concerned about the potential impact of aftershocks on buildings already structurally weakened from the first jolt. Tent camps have sprouted up across the city.

Employees of Huawei, which provides back-end support to the country's mobile phone networks, pitched tents to create a camp and sheltered 250 people in the car park of the British school.

But the survivors' misery was compounded on Sunday evening by a big storm, which sent many residents fleeing back to their homes, where many huddled in garages ready to rush out at the sign of any tremor.

Nepali authorities were not unaware of the risks of a big quake. Last year, the country marked the 80th anniversary of a devastating earthquake that had flattened much of what was then a Himalayan kingdom, and prompted a rule that no buildings should be more than five storeys high.

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